Caged Birds
by lionesseyes13
Summary: Before the Tortallan delegation arrives, Kaddar and Ozorne have a discussion about Ozorne's ailing birds.


"_We never see other people, anyway; only the monsters we make of them."—_Zone One

Caged Birds

Kaddar didn't know how he had come to be here in the extravagant aviary Emperor Ozorne had built to house his beloved birds. All he knew was that he didn't enjoy being this close to the Emperor, nor did he appreciate the fact that they were alone—or as alone as they could be when there were probably a dozen concealed guards within earshot to defend Carthak's ruler if Kaddar suddenly had the suicidal compulsion to attack his uncle.

"My precious birds are ailing, Nephew," Ozorne observed heavily, and Kaddar mentally kicked himself for not paying proper attention. He couldn't afford to be distracted by the mystery of why the Emperor wanted to meet him here alone when a careless response to this calculating, paranoid, and egotistical man could end in a bloody death. That was a fate he would rather avoid, and, if he had to be executed, he would rather it be for cleverness than for folly.

"All Carthak grieves for them, Your Imperial Majesty." Kaddar ducked his head, weighed down with golden jewelry, and clutched a branch to focus himself on the conversation.

"Except for the one who has poisoned them." Ozorne's eyes gleamed with challenge and suspicion. "That person has not shed a tear over the suffering of my poor, little birds."

Marveling inwardly at the incredible inconsistency of a man who would mourn so publically and so sincerely over the illness of birds but would calmly order the brutal deaths of nobles he had known personally if he suspected them of any sort of plot against him, Kaddar answered softly, "I don't understand the mindset of such a person. As Your Imperial Majesty is well aware, I'm studying animals in university. I love them and cannot bear to see them suffering."

"My birds are beautiful, gentle, and happy creatures." Ozorne's voice was little more than a whisper, and, dazed, Kaddar wondered which was the real Ozorne—the one who coldly presided over poisonings of supposedly traitorous humans, or who lamented over ailing birds. "I love them."

"You love them, Your Imperial Majesty, the way my father loved camels and horses." The words left Kaddar's mouth before he could stop and think about them and how safe they were to say. He could see the tenderness on the Emperor's face as the ruler described the birds' suffering. That reminded him of the astonishment he had always felt whenever he saw his father, always harsh when reprimanding Kaddar over a wrong answer in academics, murmur a grand praise in some horse's ear, or spotted his father's hands, so vicious when they wielded the cane that lanced into Kaddar's backside, stroke a camel's fur. How a man could be so cruel to people and then turn around to be so kind to animals bewildered him. Carthak, he often thought, would be a better place, if many people would show humans the same love they were willing to offer to their animals.

"You look like your mother when you say that." Ozorne fixed a long, contemplative glance on his nephew. "Normally, you resemble the father who gave you that dark skin of yours, but your face and eyes looked like hers for a moment."

The Emperor laid a hand, surprisingly light for the power of life and death it contained, on Kaddar's shoulders, and went on in a hushed tone, "When your mother was growing up at court, she was the fairest and wittiest young lady of all. Her hair, eyes, and mind shone the brightest. She was a gem, and, at thirteen, when her sparkle was fresh and enchanting, she was sent south to marry your father. At fifteen, she gave birth to you, and, though it was a painful birth, they say she chewed a wet cloth to prevent herself from crying out even when the worst contractions ripped through her, but, for all that agony, they say that she loved your father and he her."

"They were man and wife in every sense of the word." Kaddar nodded, thinking darkly that men died on the battlefield for Carthak, and women on the bed. His mother had been lucky to survive childbirth, but it was for a very good reason that a polite euphemism for the marital act was 'little death.' Biting his lip, he added, "They loved each other so much that it's still hard for me to understand it."

"We must find you such a wife as your mother was to your father." Ozorne's grip tightened on his shoulder, making Kaddar aware that they had reached the point of the conversation at last. "When the delegation from Tortall arrives with the dear little mage who might have the power to cure my birds, I will speak to them about arranging a marriage between you and Princess Kalasin. The princess is the healthy, pretty daughter of a fertile, strong queen. She would be a suitable match for my heir."

"I'll marry whoever you choose for me, of course, Your Imperial Majesty." Kaddar knew the appropriate, dutiful response and offered it without thought, because he could never be sure when Ozorne was testing his faithfulness and when the Emperor was actually sharing a serious plan with his heir. "However, are you quite sure that you don't want to search for a wife of your own? Certainly you deserve the happiness of the love of a beautiful woman."

"I do deserve the love of all creatures." Ozorne's indifferent tone was all the hint that Kaddar would ever need to understand that the Emperor didn't comprehend what it meant to love another person. Ozorne could understand what it was to lust after someone lovely or witty. He could understand what it was to take pride in somebody's beauty or cleverness. He could understand what it was to be possessive of someone, and to be jealous when someone was stolen from him, but he could not understand what it meant to love—to care about someone and to sacrifice for somebody—another person. "Alas, romantic love is not for me. No women has shown herself to be worthy of my splendor, and even one of my closest friends, who should have remained loyal to me until death, has betrayed me and fled from me. But he will be coming back here, because I have been generous enough to allow him to return with the Tortallan delegation, and he and I will make things right between us then."

At this, Kaddar couldn't help but shiver. Knowing that Ozorne was more pitiless than the midday sun burning into the back of a wayfarer traveling across the scorching desert sand, he suspected that Ozorne's making things right with the runaway friend would involve revenge rather than reconciliation. It was perfectly characteristic of the Emperor that a conversation that should have been about love had morphed into one about hatred, possessiveness, and vengeance.


End file.
